1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of manufacturing an item of underwear or sportswear as well as for manufacturing an item of swimwear.
The previously mentioned items of clothing are for the sake of simplicity hereinafter generally designated as xe2x80x9citems of clothingxe2x80x9d, without any reference to a special purpose of application. The invention therefore takes in all types of application and possibilities for the items of clothing initially mentioned.
For the sake of simplicity in the following description the manufacture of an item of underwear in the form of a brassiere is described in greater detail. The invention is, however, not restricted to this, as has been explained above. The description is therefore to be understood only as an example.
2. Description of the Related Art
To reinforce the fabric of items of clothing it has become known with U.S. Pat. No. 4,701,964, to define striped areas on a pair of ladies"" briefs by silk screen printing of an adhesive applied in powder form. The adhesive is melted by heat and is introduced into the textile fabric by appropriate heat treatment. An appropriate textile strip is then applied to these striped areas and fixed by gluing. There is therefore a doubling of textile strips on an item of clothing with the aim of creating fabric-reinforced areas.
However, the disadvantage is that a relatively large outlay is necessary, because striped adhesive areas first have to be applied in a silk screen printing process, the bonding agent, which melts when heated, then penetrates into the textile material with appropriate heat treatment and then subsequently the textile strips are stuck on. These fabric-reinforced areas thereby obtain a certain undesired thickness, which can then sometimes show under tight clothing and otherwise offers poor wearing comfort.
With DE 199 42 996 A1 a one-sided application of adhesive takes place on to a single-layer textile carrier material, which, though, is coated with a flock material. The coating with a flock material has the disadvantage, however, that an additional operational outlay is necessary and the applied flock material during the time worn or during washing of the item of clothing becomes worn or shabby in an undesired way.
The coats of adhesive mentioned are otherwise applied by the injection method. This, however, has the disadvantage that the adhesive coat is relatively thick, shows in an unfavourable way on the item of clothing and only minimal wearing comfort is achieved.
With the subject of GB 2 316 353 A1 a further method of manufacturing an item of underwear has become known, in which by means of a slit-shaped mask an application of adhesive takes place on to a fabric, on to which a further layer of a textile is then glued. The same applies to EP 0 809 945 B1, because in the item of ladies"" underwear shown there fabric reinforcement takes place on a single-layer textile by means of a gluing method only by doubling further layers of fabric. However, the doubling of layers of fabric is expensive and increases the thickness of the manufactured item of underwear in an undesired way.
Therefore the object of the invention is to further develop a method for manufacturing an item of clothing of the type initially mentioned in such a way that in a simple and economical way fabric-reinforcing areas can be achieved without these areas substantially thickening.
To achieve the object set the invention is characterised by a method according to the technical doctrine described below.
An item of clothing manufactured by this method is described below.
The invention proposes to apply a fabric-reinforcing adhesive coat to a single-layer textile fabric in such a way that the length of adhesive applied by the printing method or by the adhesive coating method is structured in such a way that it substantially corresponds to the later outer contour of the item of clothing.
In this way a completely novel method for manufacturing items of clothing of this kind is proposed, for it is in this way possible to create a hem-free edge for the item of clothing. The edge itself is formed by the adhesive length according to the invention, which is applied either by the printing method or by the adhesive coating method.
Therefore a smooth, single-layer fabric is coated with a coat of adhesive which substantially corresponds, e.g. to the later outer contour of a brassiere. In a further operational process the fabric coated in this way is cut exactly in the area of this length applied by the adhesive method so the cut edge is exactly in the area of the printed length.
This results in a fabric-strengthened outer area of the item of clothing, reinforced by the adhesive coat. The cut edge no longer has to be hemmed or folded round. There is also no need to manufacture seams, hems or similar by sewing machine. This gives rise to the advantage that the edge of this item of clothing no longer shows even under tight clothing, but in spite of this a highly stable edge area of the item of clothing is created. An item of clothing of this kind is therefore eminently suitable as an item of underwear, an item of sportswear or item of swimwear.
Manufacture is particularly simple, because only one application of adhesive in the area of the later outer contour of the item of clothing takes place and the item of clothing is later cut out exactly in the area of this adhesive application.
Naturally further fabric-reinforced areas can be provided with the said adhesive coat, in order to create even more reinforced areas, constructed as even more stable compared with the basic fabric.
It is herein preferred if the adhesive coat preferably consists in the silk screen printing method as a watery solution consisting of air-drying adhesives.
One or more component adhesives can be used herein. In another configuration of the invention it is provided that instead of application of the printed length by the silk screen printing method an adhesive coating method takes place. In this case a melting bonding agent is applied to a sintered foil in the form of a band. The sintered foil is applied to the item of clothing and printed on by means of heat and pressure, so the heat-melting adhesive located on the sintered band penetrates into the textile fabric and forms a single-layer adhesive area, fabric-reinforced in each case. With this printing method too for the sake of simplicity a xe2x80x9cprinted lengthxe2x80x9d is referred to. The term xe2x80x9cprinted lengthxe2x80x9d is therefore adopted for both the silk screen printing method according to the invention and for the previously described transfer print.
With the given printing method it is therefore possible also to use a print medium which foams on hardening and has bubble-shaped air inclusions. This results in a padded, fabric-reinforced area, because the air inclusions in the print medium pad out the fabric in the way of a foam material. If a colour of the print medium is chosen which is different from the colour of the cut-out material interesting aesthetic effects emerge.
The print medium can also consist of an open-cell elastic foam.
In the preceding description it was cited that the outer contour of the item of clothing is preferably provided by the fabric-reinforcing printing method. However, the invention is not restricted to this. It can also be provided to provide only certain areas on the textile item of clothing with the fabric-reinforcing adhesive coats, without these adhesive coats necessarily being in the area of the outer contour.
The invention therefore takes in all possibilities of creating certain areas in an item of clothing of the kind initially mentioned by fabric-reinforcing adhesive application. In the case of manufacturing a brassiere the arrangement of the different printed areas is, however, preferred in such a way that at least the band below the breast, the band above the breast and the back band are made by fabric-reinforcing application on a single-layer textile item.
In a further development of the invention additional fabric-reinforcing adhesive coats can also be provided in the inner area of the brassiere.
In particular an additional design print can be used in the inner area of the brassiere, e.g. in the area of the cups.
Additional printed areas can be arranged in particular in the area of the half-cups to achieve a lifting effect.
In the same way the wires in the brassiere formerly made of plastics material or wire can now be effected according to the invention by a rod-shaped application of a fabric-reinforcing medium. The wire previously constructed as a plastics material or wire hoop is now replaced by an approximately semi-circular, rod-shaped adhesive coat which at least partially surrounds the half-cups from underneath.
The subject of the present invention emerges not only from the subject of the individual patent claims but also from the combination of the individual patent claims with one another.
All details and features disclosed in the documents, including the abstract, in particular the three-dimensional configuration illustrated in the drawings, are claimed as essential to the invention, in so far as they are individually or in combination novel compared with the prior art.